In 2009 Newgrounds hosted The Power of Three, a summer game dev event where teams of three (programmer, artist, musician) made games with the theme of three in three months. There were some amazing teams and many of them didn't finish their games but the really impressive part was seeing the lasting impact of the event. For example, Toss the Turtle is one of the most popular games in the history of NG and it was created by a team that formed during Po3. Zeebarf and EntropicOrder teamed up for Po3 and now have their own company. Adam Phillips and Weasel teamed up for Po3 and went on to make that awesome Brackenwood game that sorta fell through the cracks. Just this year I talked to some devs who originally teamed up for Power of Three, and I can't even remember who that was now.

For 2014, we're embracing THE POWER OF FOUR. Teams of FOUR now have FOUR months to create a game with the theme of "FOUR" somewhere in its design.

You can structure your team any way you like; it could be programmer, artist, musician and writer or programmer, character artist, musician and background artist.

One exception: You can use unlimited voice actors and they don't count torwards your team total. We decided this was important because we didn't want to limit the range of voices in a game, and leaving a fourth slot open encourages more teams to work with writers to supply their voice actors with good material.

When your team is ready, reply to this thread with your team name and roster of four team members. You may start development today, the deadline is October 14th, 2014.

Things you should figure out from the start:

1) Agree on how you will split revenue from your game, so everyone is clear.

2) Scope your game based on how much time everyone will be able to commit over the next four months. Don't expect to work full-time. If you're home from school for the summer, plan to have your game done before you go back.

You may seak sponsorship for your game but try to avoid sponsors with really ugly/lengthy intros and in-gameplay watermarks, they bum people out. Also if you want to run ads on your loading screen, please use the NG ad API for the NG version of your game; it defaults to standard 300x250 ads when hosted on NG because we now run a higher paying in-site video ad before your game.

Your game may be SWF, HTML5 or Unity; we support them all!

Please use the NG blog system to blog about your ongoing progress and share it with fans on sites like Facebook and Twitter! If you are devblogging as part of Power of Four but don't have front page news access, please PM me and let me know.

I'll be setting up a page to document the teams. You can use this thread to announce teams, discuss the event, make suggestions and ask questions. If you are looking to find teammates, you may use this thread but also use The Collabinator and the most effective method of all: Directly contact people on NG who you want to work with. This is your chance to make something with people you admire and form bonds that will last a lifetime!

Hey if any one needs a voice actor for their project send me a private message I have some free time this summer and would like to add some games to the resume. Here is a link to my character reel http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/549289 I also do audio editing and can do some custom sound fx if need be.

What if it was like four dudes sitting around a campfire, and one guy is all lively looking telling a story, while another guy is typing on a laptop, another is on a keyboard with headphones and another is drawing in a sketchbook... But they all still look engaged, like they're excited about the idea and jamming out on their parts...

What if it was like four dudes sitting around a campfire, and one guy is all lively looking telling a story, while another guy is typing on a laptop, another is on a keyboard with headphones and another is drawing in a sketchbook... But they all still look engaged, like they're excited about the idea and jamming out on their parts...

At 6/11/14 05:14 PM, squidly wrote:
Hey, wait a minute, what's the fourth person supposed to do anyways? I honestly think you should've just ran three again, fourth is just... writer? Who needs a writer in a four person team ._.

We could do a vote if everyone else wants to just do Power of Three again... I think four brings some interesting dynamics to the groups, in terms of multiple artists, or writers, or level designers, sound effects... Maybe it's reaching too far though, I'll admit three has always been a comfy number for game development.

At 6/11/14 05:14 PM, squidly wrote:
Hey, wait a minute, what's the fourth person supposed to do anyways? I honestly think you should've just ran three again, fourth is just... writer? Who needs a writer in a four person team ._.

Alternatively, we could change the event to "Three on Four", where we set out to see if that fourth person makes a big difference for teams who choose to have one... Teams of four use a theme of four, teams of three use a theme of three...

At 6/11/14 04:18 PM, TomFulp wrote:
One exception: You can use unlimited voice actors and they don't count torwards your team total. We decided this was important because we didn't want to limit the range of voices in a game, and leaving a fourth slot open encourages more teams to work with writers to supply their voice actors with good material.

Unlimited voice actors? You know what that means. Time to throw my hat in the ring as a voice actor and get overlooked just like (nearly) every other time!

At 6/11/14 05:14 PM, squidly wrote:
Hey, wait a minute, what's the fourth person supposed to do anyways? I honestly think you should've just ran three again, fourth is just... writer? Who needs a writer in a four person team ._.

Breidde writer, 4th could also be a troubleshooter/jack of all trades. I know a lot of peopl have through NG gotten acquainted with various disciplines, but might not be good enough to take a single task all by themselves. They can give feedback/ideas to the other members and help keep overview and communication, since they're not stuck to one perspective.

Power of four? That's even better! I know I really needed a writer in my group last time. Or at least someone who thought of puzzles, important items and where these would be located. We didn't really have a sense of direction about the project at first, but settled with a point and click game in the end. Sadly it was never finished. I think a clear idea of a story would really have helped us work more effectively. Word of advice here; don't underestimate the importance of a writer.

At 6/11/14 05:42 PM, Whirlguy wrote:
Here's a quick logo design I just made up.

POWER OF FOOUUUURRR DURR

I like that concept!

And agreed about the importance of a writer / designer / puzzle guy. It's something I've generally gone without but right now I'm working on a game where I feel like a level designer in particular could really help sort some things out. Maybe these event will ferret out some people like that - they can be hard to find if they don't have any established work.

At 6/11/14 05:24 PM, TomFulp wrote:
Alternatively, we could change the event to "Three on Four", where we set out to see if that fourth person makes a big difference for teams who choose to have one... Teams of four use a theme of four, teams of three use a theme of three...

Regardless of what you decide to do, I want to take part in this as a musician. I did not take part in Power of Three and I'm glad that you have given me another chance.